


When Adam Kisses Him First

by inkfish



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, post-trk, pynch - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 18:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7000204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkfish/pseuds/inkfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam Parrish was a complicated thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Adam Kisses Him First

Ronan Lynch had found a loophole in Adam Parrish’s pride.

It took him over a year of knowing the boy before he figured it out; before Ronan figured himself out enough to realize he could help without causing the stony, glaring silence that happened whenever Gansey overstepped himself and helped Adam in ways Adam could never repay.

The first gift was the lotion. Adam’s hands- the strong, wiry fingers that always had grease under the fingernails, the palm covered in callouses- where not friends with winter. The cold air pulled from him what moisture clung to his skin causing cracks and bleeding and pain and Ronan couldn’t stand it. He went to his second favorite place, Cabeswater, and pulled the small bottle from his mind easier than he had dreamt anything. The plastic container was devoid of any product marking save a simple label wrapped around the front of it: “For you.”

Ronan held it for a moment, wind dancing with the leaves of the trees that spoke to him, wondering if that was possibly just a little too much. He moved to open the lid, twisting it off and holding the lotion close to his face to smell it. When he did, he felt his stomach twist impossibly tight and for a few long moments he forgot how to breathe.

Gansey had told Ronan once that the olfactory system was one of the best when it came to recalling memories. A simple smell could take someone to a different time and help them relive a memory, although in a much more normal way, not like standing in Cabeswater as it’s Greywaren and thinking things that became true. Gansey sometimes used it for school. He would chew a certain flavor of gum while studying and when he took the test, he would quietly palm a piece of the same flavor into his mouth as his teachers passed out the papers. It helped him remember what he had read before, surrounded by the taste and smell of cinnamon. He couldn’t use mint gum since he was always chewing on the leaves; that smell was more likely to pull up memories of Blue than of widespread economic problems that lead to the downfall of the United States economy in the 1920s.

Ronan slipped from his mind and left the lotion in Adam’s car. No bow on it, no note, no initials to tell him who left it. The lack of ponce ruled out Gansey as the gift giver and Blue would have just handed it to him. They were equals in a way Gansey and Ronan where and a gift from her was fair. That’s why Ronan was so glad to have a way of doing things for Adam that didn’t require money or theft.

Adam Parrish was a complicated thing.

Yet Ronan stood in his room at St. Agnes, waiting for him to finish taking a shower so they could meet with Gansey and Blue at Nino’s for dinner. The lotion container was on Adam’s desk, carefully twisted closed against the cool fall air. Ronan picked it up, noticing immediately how much lighter it was. Adam’s hands had been so soft recently, the skin around the knuckles calm and loose and easy to kiss.

He opened it, breathing deeply the smell that had nearly destroyed him the last time he did this. Before he had kissed Adam and smelled that smell all over him because the lotion wasn’t scented to be raspberry or coconut. It was Adam. If Ronan tried, he could pull out the different parts- his laundry detergent (bargain brand) and deodorant (from the dollar store) and a little gasoline (free, from work) and that big part of standing close enough to Adam to smell all of this and the essence of Adam without standing too close to be creepy or to force or to scare because when Ronan smelled the lotion for the first time he nearly drank it down. Even now, the only way to get all of this and his radiating warmth was by standing justalittletooclose and even though they had kissed already Ronan could not get used to that smell. He almost made himself a bottle but he didn’t; doing so would have cheapened it, made it more common, less special and Adam was nothing but special.

Ronan dropped the lotion from his face, carefully capping it and putting it back on Adam’s clean desk. He sat on the edge of Adam’s bed, barely stable on it, barely touching it, and looked at his own hands. 

Dirt under the fingernails from working at the Barns. A little dry, but no cracks or bleeding or pain. His callouses had developed from the last few months of working at the Barns and he knew.

“Thank you,” a soft southern drawl said from the doorway. “For the lotion. It’s been a life saver.”

Ronan looked up from his hands to Adam, who stood in the doorway clad in jeans and no shirt, towel drying his hair. Ronan watched as the muscles in his chest and arms flexed and relaxed, casting shadows as they moved. Adam was a mostly smooth-skinned boy, but the beginnings of adulthood trailed hair around his belly button and to the waistband of his jeans. This is where he said something witty. Something sharp. Something funny. Something.

“Nice shirt,” he mumbled.

Adam’s face pinked. He lowered the towel in front of his body, using it to shield his partial nakedness. “The one I took in there got water all over it,” he explained, crossing the room to his closet. “Sorry.”

“Don’t.”

The word surprised both Adam, who heard it, and Ronan, who said it. Adam half turned, towel still guarding him, hair dripping into his eyes and eyebrows bunched together in question.

“Be sorry,” Ronan muttered. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” And then he was standing next to him, watching the water drip from his hair and he moved his hand to brush the damp locks from Adam’s face. He paused just before he made contact, looking down at Adam who lost his confused face and smiled. Not a smile that he did in school for his teachers or at work for his customers but his smile that was only for Ronan. It was wide and silent joy and a look in his eyes that made Ronan forget the rest of the world.

Ronan slid his fingers through Adam’s hair, pushing it from his face. He slid his hand to the back of Adam’s head, pulling him closer and when their lips brushed, Ronan could still feel him smiling. He couldn’t help but smile too as he pulled away, his thin-lipped smirk making Adam’s eyes glow. He stepped back, giving Adam space to finished getting dressed but Adam wrapped his fingers around Ronan’s wrist and whispered. If he spoke too loud the fragility of this could break under his voice and if he spoke too much of the world would hear when all he needed was Ronan’s ears to pick up what he was saying.

“Don’t.” Adam still held the towel, still held Ronan’s wrist in his hands and when Ronan half turned, confused, Adam smiled. “Don’t go.” He pulled the taller boy back to him, releasing the damp towel to the floor and letting go of his wrist so that Adam could wrap his arms up around Ronan’s neck and this time it wasn’t something as sweet as their first, second, or third kiss. Ronan started most of those kisses and he always stayed within himself, afraid of being too Ronan for once and pushing too far. He spent so much of his life trying to break boundaries and piss people off that he forgot how to be good and how to be safe and this time when Adam kissed him first Ronan could feel their hearts pounding, Adam’s chest pressed against his with only a muscle tee keeping them apart and when Adam kissed him first he was soft lips but powerful urgency and when Adam kissed first Ronan lost himself in him.

He ran his tongue over Ronan’s bottom lip, teasing him, and when Ronan opened his mouth he felt electricity burning through their bodies. Adam pulled him closer and he wrapped his arms around the boy, one around his waist and one on his back, feeling the heat of muscles and knotted bone against his hands. Adam broke away for a split second, moving his arms and taking one deep shuddering breath before his lips found the skin along Ronan’s jaw.

Ronan gasped, clutching him tighter. He could feel the heat rise from deep within his belly and when Adam’s kiss returned to his mouth Ronan struggled to keep them from falling to the ground. Instead he staggered back until his spine crunched against the frame of the closet, drywall groaning as it took on the extra weight. Adam’s urgency was matched by Ronan and after a few long minutes they had to separate, clinging tight to each other, chests heaving and lips already swollen.

Ronan couldn’t think beyond the space they occupied. Nothing else existed but the boy in his arms and when Adam smiled at him Ronan knew too. He rested his forehead on Adam’s, close faces sharing breath and Ronan knew that while he was made for war he could fight for love. He had already broken a nose and blackened eyes for Adam and he knew that, if Adam wanted it, Ronan would do whatever it took to get rid of the dark circles that drowned the eyes of the boy in front of him. Ronan moved one hand to touch Adam’s cheek, fingers cupping his jaw and thumb moving gently over his lips.

Adam pretended to bite at his finger, smiling that smile again. Ronan’s phone buzzed in his pocket, trapped between the pair’s legs and jarring them apart. Ronan felt heat simmer at his face as he pulled the stupid thing from his jeans, reading the annoyed “You guys are late, where are you?” text from Gansey and tossing his phone on Adam’s bed.

“Why were you smelling the lotion?” Adam asked, reaching for a plain gray t-shirt from his closet. “It doesn’t smell like anything.”

Ronan ran his fingers over his mouth, watching Adam finish dressing before responding.

“It does to me,” he said. Adam tried to fix his hair in his reflection on the window. It was still heavily damp and dripped onto his shirt. Ronan continued: “It smells like you.” He said it in a way that made it known it wasn’t a bad smell. It wasn’t an okay smell. It was one that Ronan could only get when he stood too close to him and Adam turned to him, hair forgotten, and made them a little more late.

**Author's Note:**

> First post on AO3! Hope y'all like it. i'm shatterandrewlynch on tumblr!


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